May 2014 – Self-Indulgent Drivel

A lot has happened in the past few years. A lot has happened in the last several months.

I’m living back in Portland now, in a small, windowless bedroom that will be perfect for this summer because it will remain dark and cool on days when I need to sleep in for work that night. It’s a step in the right direction. I have landlords I seldom see and a downstairs roommate who is gone for long stretches of time, and whom I’ve yet to meet. It’s not ideal, but for now, it’s workable.

I’m single. I have friends and ways to stave off the loneliness, but it’s always weird for me when I’m not particularly pining for anyone and I don’t have a partner. I don’t know what to do with my energy if I’m not trying to make a relationship work or convince someone to love me.

There is this hot guy who also works for Radio Cab, and I’m trying to screw up the nerve to ask him out for coffee sometime. I feel like a teenaged girl around him, tripping over my feet and unable to speak or look him in the eye. It’s stupid and sort of wonderful. I found out a bit about him, and realized he’s like SUPER COOL and way out of my league, and that made me sort of… reevaluate. I made a decision.

I am going to get my life to a point where I feel proud of where I am, I’m going to get my body in a stronger and healthier condition, I’m going to seek treatment for my various psychiatric concerns, and I am going to become awesome enough that this guy would be a goddamned fool not to want to date me. And then, if he doesn’t want to date me, he’s a damned fool and not worth my time. Also, I’ll be awesome.

I’m well on my way.

I had dinner with an friend tonight, someone I had a brief relationship with a coupla years back. We hadn’t hung out in about a year because of stupid life stuff. He brought up our breakup in reference to something I’d said on this blog, wondering if it was something that had scarred me. I told him that it hadn’t, and in the process of thinking about WHY NOT, I realized something:

This past year-or-so has been so chaotic, so full of loss and madness and sadness and heartbreak and losing myself, that I really don’t have space in my head anymore to hold on to old hurts. Am I pissed off about a relationship that ended for the right reasons almost two years ago? No, I am not. I’m not mad at Chris, or Cody (who keeps apologizing for things I let go of months ago.) I no longer pine for a certain someone I pined after for years. I let it go. I had to. It was time.

I’m still shaky, still insecure and undecided, still mentally illish, still a bit fatter than I’d like to be. But I’m working, and I have a safe place to live, and I’m striving for better things. It’s not all great, some of it isn’t even good, but on the whole, I’m doing really well because I’m doing so much better than I was six months ago.

And for the moment, that’s enough to keep me going.

Baby, it’s all such a treacherous game…

Worked a half-shift last night because I had a sudden, horrid, distracting migraine that made it so I couldn’t drive safely. Smoked a cigarette (even though I basically quit months ago) because there’s nothing better than a smoke to grant me 15 minutes of clarity so I can drive home. Which I did. And then I took the maximum number of sedatives and sleeping pills that I feel is prudent, and I’m still wide awake four hours after I arrived in my nice, safe, warm bedroom.

My therapist says that on the nights I’m feeling crazy, I shouldn’t fight it so hard. So I’m not. I’m awake at almost six in the morning because… well, because I couldn’t sleep. And rather than lay there in the dwindling darkness, I thought I’d get up and attend to this here blarrg. Whilst sedated. Because I’m a goddamned daredevil.

My life has been on a definite upswing for the last two months. I’ve become something of a workaholic, when I can manage to drive safely. I’ve had two nights in a row now where I’ve left early because I was too ill or distracted to complete my shift. This is disappointing, but I still made a lot more money than I would have if I’d just stayed home. I’ve saved quite a bit of cash for the move I have to do in the next week. I still don’t know where I’m going. I’m excited and scared. Fortunately, if I can’t move into somewhere by next Saturday (when I have to be out of this place) I can afford to stay in a hotel for a few nights. Working 50 hours a week has its advantages.

Driving a cab is making me Zen in ways I never thought I could manage. My ability to go with the flow and remain calm even when there are somewhat stressful things going on is developing nicely. I’m not as nervous anymore. I’m generally suffused with the feeling that “I’ve got this.” I seem to be good at my job. Let’s just hope I can keep it for awhile.

For those of you who don’t already know, I broke up with my boyfriend about a month ago. We’re still living together. We might keep living together, because we know we can stand each other and it’s a lot cheaper to rent a place together than to try to get places individually. I’ve looked at some places on my own, and it was not encouraging…

So my life, as always is in flux. But I’m doing okay. It’s nice to be able to handle stress and not, you know, die.

Month: May 2014

but there’s something waiting out there that says i’ve got to try

the curse and the blessing, they’re one and the same